Which States Have The Worst Road Infrastructure?

Most people feel like the road conditions in North Carolina are pretty bad. But the following article ranks us with the 15th best out of 50 states! Who would have thought?

Key Findings:

Rhode Island, Oklahoma and West Virginia top in nation for worst road infrastructure.

• Tennessee, Georgia and Florida best in nation for road infrastructure.
• Top 10 states with the worst infrastructure costs drivers an annual average of $752 from poor road conditions.
• Top 5 states with the worst infrastructure spend below the national average of 30 percent on road repairs.

The nation’s infrastructure is frequently talked about at political campaign rallies. The promise of better roads, funding and jobs created from infrastructure projects are key ticket items. They’re right about the nation needing infrastructure improvements: a Federal Highway Administration report show 61 percent of the country’s highways are in fair to poor condition. Transportation for America estimates a cost of $231 billion a year to keep our existing road network in acceptable repair.

Taxpayer funded highway capital delegated for states to maintain roads isn’t enough to cover necessary repairs. Many states are spending the majority of their highway capital on expansion instead of maintenance of roads. At this rate, it becomes a never ending game of maintenance catch up. On top of taxpayer dollars, it’s estimated that driving on roads in poor condition costs motorists $120 billion in vehicle repairs and operating costs. That’s $533 per driver.

Maintaining quality roads in a given state is a matter of priority and delegation of funds. While analyzing FHA data, we found a correlation between states that use funds to maintain roads and states that rank well overall for road infrastructure. States with poor road infrastructure had higher costs per driver and typically poor road conditions across the board.

We here at QuoteWizard analyzed Federal Highway Administration data to rank states on overall quality of road infrastructure. Rankings are a composite score based on a state’s rating in:

• Percentage of poor condition roads
• Annual cost per motorist due to roads in need of repair
• Percentage of structurally deficient bridges

Rankings 1 to 50, with first being worst overall road infrastructure and 50th being best overall road infrastructure. Also included, but not part of the ranking factors, is the percentage of state highway spending on road repairs to show which states are addressing the problem.

To see the full rankings, click here.

(Article Courtesy: Adam Johnson via QuoteWizard)

Contact Us